In 1983, I became interested in selecting new tree cultivars from the species Acer truncatum. I collected seed, and in the summer of 1984, I grew a group of seedlings in a seed lot. Although the pollen parent of these seedlings was unknown, observation of foliage and growth made me think that the pollen parent was Acer platanoides. I planted out the 50 strongest of the seedlings from this seed lot for evaluation and to facilitate cross pollination to create seed for possible future selection. From these 50 selected seedlings, I later selected and patented two cultivars, ‘Warrenred’ U.S. Plant Pat. No. 7,433 and ‘Keithsform’ U.S. Plant Pat. No. 7,529.
Over the next several years, I selected additional seedlings of Acer truncatum from a variety of different sources and added the best specimens to my evaluation and cross pollination plot. These trees were allowed to grow to the size at which they would set seed. I allowed all of these trees to cross pollinate, and I collected seed from the best looking trees in the plot. I germinated the seed in seedbeds and grew thousands of seedlings for evaluation. Among these open pollinated seedlings, in 1997, I noticed that several of my plants displayed some degree of purple leaf coloration. In the spring of 1998, I transplanted these trees to a row in Boring, Oreg. I selected one particular seedling in the summer of 1998 that had particularly deep purple foliage, that I have now named ‘JFS-KW202’.
Realizing that this seedling tree possessed unique characteristics, I grew this tree to more mature size and repeatedly propagated small plots of this tree vegetatively by T-budding onto Acer platanoides rootstock and by softwood cuttings. From this propagation, I found that the characteristics of my new tree were indeed unique and were firmly fixed.